In Memory Of
by Sherlockd
Summary: John Watson soldiers through the worst of circumstances, because that what soldiers do. When a dying woman shows up at 221B asking for the detective, the biological father of her child, John does the only thing he can. One thing is certain: John's going to make sure Sherlock's son will know his father as a hero.


Sherlock had been dead for two weeks, five days, and almost four hours.

John noted the last bit mechanically as he glanced at the clock. It'd taken him two weeks and five days before he had returned to Baker Street to sort through Sherlock's things. He hadn't wanted to, hadn't made much headway. But it wasn't fair to Mrs. Hudson to let it all stagnate, especially when she needed to rent the rooms. He only had a week before rent was up, but without a flat share he couldn't afford 221B.

It was impossible to imagine anyone else taking up Sherlock's space, touching things that had been his, breathing the air that he had. No. God, no. That'd be just...

He'd been in contact with Mycroft. Once. The man had said only that everything in 221B was John's and had offered to pay the extra for John's rent, if he wished to continue living the life he was accustomed to. John had declined. Being alone in the flat was almost worse than the thought of sharing with someone who wasn't Sherlock. And he wouldn't live his life on Mycroft's dime.

Sherlock had been the life he was accustomed to, not this stumbling around after his cane, the noble invalid again. He had been so much with Sherlock-the two of them were more than math, more than Sherlock-plus-John is greater than Sherlock-alone or John-alone. They were catalysts to each other, constantly reactivating and burning each other up, endlessly. With Sherlock, John was just… inactive.

His head slipped down into his hands. God. No wonder people thought they were together. He sounded like a ruddy teenage girl. It wasn't… Sherlock wasn't like that. Intimacy with him came from the look on his face when he put the pieces together, when he took each piece and showed it to John, turning it over so each sparkling clue was theirs to share. They didn't need the pulse of arousal. Regardless of Sherlock's views on sex, he loved well enough, even if he couldn't see it himself. He loved the work, and John had to believe that there was love in their friendship, or Moriarty's ghost would come creeping in like London's winter chill, and John would never be able to let Sherlock rest.

Sherlock was real. He needed those three words to sharpen his focus.

_Just a magic trick, John._

"No. No, I am not going to think about that." John's leg twinged as he rose from the couch, limped to start on cleaning the fridge. There wasn't anything salvageable, he didn't think. Just organs and other... things that were long gone bad. Just wet and red and-

And he wasn't thinking about that either because if he did then he'd just start thinking about that fall and the imagined crunch of skull against pavement because he wasn't close enough to hear, just close enough to see the splatter and the chunks of Sherlock's brilliance spread across the pavement, and the bile was rising and he just made it to the sink in time to disgorge half digested dim sum.

"God." The words burned in his throat. "God, what do I...?" His stomach dry heaved again, turned into a sob somewhere before it hit his voice, and came past his lips as a wounded, broken keen. A soft hand came down gently on his shoulder.

"Oh, I know, dear." Mrs. Hudson had crept back up, and she pushed a glass of water towards him. "Wash your mouth out. There's a love. Now, Doctor, you've a woman at the door. I hate to ask, but she's insisting on being let up, and she has a little boy with her..." She nattered on for a bit as John rinsed his mouth and took a swig.

"Right. It's fine, Mrs. Hudson, it's all..." A thick swallow against the ever-patient, ever-waiting bile. "Fine." John took her hand for a moment, and her lips pursed, fluttered.

"It's just, she's asking for Sherlock."

John steeled himself, blinked stiffly, and nodded.

"Well, I'll go and fetch her, then." Mrs. Hudson left the door open, and John heard another woman's voice, soft, thankful. He slumped back down into his armchair, blew his breath out harshly through his teeth, and by the time the footsteps reached the top stair, he'd pulled his concerned doctor's face on.

He studied the woman for a moment, tried to look at her like Sherlock would have, but he got nothing like Sherlock would have got. Not that he didn't observe-he had doctor's eyes, and they saw plenty.

She was far too thin, the sort of thin that indicated disease, not dieting, and she moved weakly, delicately. She started to talk, coughed dryly, and John stood up instantly to move her into the chair. As she sat, he kept his fingers on her wrist, counted out the beats. Elevated pulse. Pain? Stress?

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but are you alright?" John waved a hand in her general direction. "You don't seem... I'm a doctor. John Watson."

She'd been pretty once, he thought as her lips tilted up. "I suppose I do seem a bit not good. Hope Jefferson." She had a Scottish lilt to her voice, and John could only wonder how she'd managed to avoid news of the fall of the greatest modern detective, when she seemed to desperate to find him. "Please, I'd rather get it all out at once. Sherlock Holmes does live here, right?"

And god, John didn't know how to answer that question. The ghost of Sherlock could easily be laying there on the couch, fingers pressed to his lips with his hair haloed by the light from the late afternoon sun, "Boring!" about to fall from his lips, and John wrenched his gaze back to Hope. She saw the pain in his face and glanced around for a moment, before meeting his eyes.

"Has something happened?"

John swallowed hard. "Sherlock... Sherlock is dead."

He'd expected sympathy, or contrition, but the woman's face crumpled into nothing and John could only liken it to Sherlock's body falling, falling, but the doctor in him moved forward and took her hand.

"Ms. Jefferson?"

"He can't be dead." And the tears were rolling down her cheeks now, tears John himself hadn't been able to shed-just too much pain to come leaking out-and she turned her desperate face to John. "He was my last resort for… My son, you see, and I'm..."

She took one of the bone-deep breaths John had become so accustomed to himself, in and out and in, before asking softly, "How well did you know Sherlock?"

"As well as anyone could, I suppose. I'm his-I was his best friend." A bitter smile. "Only friend, according to him."

"And you knew him well?"

"As well as anyone can know a Holmes."

Hope was suddenly gentle. "So you know about his days as an addict, then?"

Where was this leading? John blew his breath out through his teeth. "I do. Go on."

"I dealt cocaine then." She was blunt about it, but the regret lingered bitterly between them. "When he didn't have the money, he paid in other ways." She gave him a significant look.

John flinched back in his chair, shoulders straightening, then slouching forward in turn. He couldn't say that he was truly surprised, but still, "Sherlock said that, well, sex-well, relationships, actually-wasn't really his area…?"

"That's what he told me, too. The first time anyway." Hope wrung her hands together. "Then he did this little thing, reading thing, knew everything about me-was a bit rude about it, too. I reminded him that I had a bag of coke, and he… he performed well enough. We only… a few times, when he was broke."

John couldn't imagine Sherlock being that broke, Mycroft surely would have taken care of-but Sherlock probably wouldn't have accepted. Not if Mycroft wouldn't allow his habit. Not if Mycroft was, well, Mycroft. Of course, Mycroft wouldn't have given Sherlock money if it was going to just turn into cocaine.

As if summoned, John's phone dinged from the table by his chair. He couldn't help the quick glance towards it, wondering maybe, just maybe it was Sherlock, and John was having a horrible hallucination, brought on by drugged tea. God but he'd be so happy if it was just drugged tea, whatever he'd said at Baskerville.

It was Mycroft, instead. The bile rose in his throat. If not for Mycroft, Sherlock wouldn't have had to jump, wouldn't be... John read the text anyway.

_Her story is truth thus far, however unlikely. MH_

John gaze flitted around the apartment, seeking out the glare of a camera lens. No such luck. Another ding.

_Do try to keep from being obvious. Listen to your visitor. MH_

John put his phone on vibrate. Hope felt his returned attention.

"Well, as does happen when a man and woman know each other, you know, biblically, I got pregnant. I never planned to tell him. I got clean. I wanted to raise my boy properly. But… I had some enemies, and they've cut my life short."

John frowned and leaned forward. "You mean some of your drug cohorts did this?"

Hope nodded miserably under John's scrutiny.

Then it clicked into place.

"Wait. The baby-_Sherlock's_ baby-that's your son? The one downstairs?" His hands covered his face, rolled down his cheeks. That knowledge was almost too much. "Why did you-oh, you wanted Sherlock to take him?"

"I did." Hope's face was contrite, words tired. "He deserves one living parent."

John jumped as his phone vibrated in his hand.

_There is no record of a Hope Jefferson. Team is en route. Caution is advised. MH_

Seeing the words written out allowed them to fully register.

Hope Jefferson. Jefferson Hope. The cabbie.

John still kept his Browning tucked into his waistband, not because of "could be dangerous," but because it was nostalgic-sentiment! Sherlock would have sneered-and even his grief had not dulled his reflexes. The woman hadn't been able to move even the slightest bit towards him before he had the cold metal of the barrel pressed against her forehead.

"Who are you, really?"

She barely flinched, spoke calmly. "A puppet of Moriarty's. My story wasn't false, you know. I got clean after I realized I was pregnant. But a couple of months back I was abducted. Moriarty had his men inject me with the AIDS virus. I was-"

"A safety net." Mycroft loomed in the doorway, umbrella still for once. "Moriarty planned to use you to keep my brother under his thumb, in case the fall… well, fell through."

John relaxed slightly, stuffed his gun back into the waistband of his trousers.

"Dr. Watson." Mycroft acknowledged, smile thin and wire sharp and ready to cut. "Pardon my interruption. I realized who the boy was when she first arrived, and made my way here swiftly as could be."

John's voice was cold as the barrel of his pistol when he spoke. "What kind of safety net? What were you supposed to do?"

The woman cringed downwards into her chair. "Just insurance. Moriarty didn't think that Sherlock would try and run, but if he did, Moriarty would have used my son as a line to reel him back in. But if Sherlock is dead, that means Moriarty won, doesn't it?"

"Moriarty is dead." Mycroft's voice was all finality. When John turned a questioning eye, the Holmes patriarch continued. "We recovered his body from the roof of Bart's."

"And you're sure it was him?" The woman asked it, but it could have been John's question. "It's just, he's a bit ruthless, and smart."

"We're positive." A polite cough, a twist of his umbrella in his hands. "It's a bomb, isn't it? On your son. The neck strapping is effective, nearly unnoticeable under a turtle neck, except to the trained eye. I assume it will explode if removed?"

And John was torn between slick not-another-child-no-no-no and selfish, shameful if-he-had-to-lose-a-Holmes-brother-why-couldn't-it -have-been-Mycroft-instead and god, he really is the most despicable human being.

The woman was crying again. Mycroft motioned her to fetch her son. "We have a bomb team en route."

"Why are you doing all this?"

"I am your son's uncle." A moderately impatient tap with his umbrella, and the woman paled, fled downstairs. Mycroft edged closer to John. "I can see you're wallowing in self-hatred. There's no need. I am in full agreement with your inner voice."

John threw the punch before he could even think about the consequences of attacking the British government.

"Don't you dare. Don't you _fucking_ dare." John teeth chattered, full body shakes of adrenaline as he stared down at Mycroft. "You have no right-"

"You think I don't feel, John? Is that it?" Even kneeling, Mycroft seemed to loom as John stalked forwards, ready to throw another fist.

"I know how you feel about sentiment, Mycroft, don't try to tell me otherwise now." And his anger flowed down his arm like molten lava, fast and painful, but Mycroft caught this punch, pulled John off balance and rolled the soldier over his bespoke-clad shoulder and onto the floor.

Stunned, John stared at the ceiling, lungs stuttering for air when Mycroft followed through with a foot on John's solar plexus.

_He's the most dangerous man you'll ever meet, John._

"He was my _brother_. I may not care for sentiment, but I did care for him. I would have let him overdose to death years ago if I didn't."

God, that was cold, John thought. But it was just cold enough to be truth. The fight bled out of him, and Mycroft immediately reached a hand down to him. Once upright, he grumbled a bit. "Took me a bit by surprise, there."

Mycroft retrieved his umbrella from where it had fallen and rubbed at his jaw where John's first punch had connected. "Just because I do not care for legwork does not mean I am incapable."

He didn't float down the stairs like Sherlock had. Slithered, more like, but John followed anyway, thoughtfully. He'd felt himself alone in misery-no, not alone, there was Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade maybe, and poor Molly couldn't even look at him without bursting into tears. But John was angry, so angry. Hurt and sad, obviously, but so much angrier, even more than Mrs. Hudson's petite fury about the state of the flat, whatever he'd said at the funereal.

In the moment he'd been flipped over Mycroft's shoulder, he'd seen his own fury reflected back in the eyes of the Holmes patriarch. It shouldn't have been, but it was a comfort. A bit of vindictive good-I'm-glad-you're miserable-because-he-was-something-more-than-life type of comfort, but still.

Anthea awaited them at the bottom of the stairs. She glanced up from her phone long enough to point to Mrs. Hudson's open door. A man John didn't recognize knelt at the foot of the little boy. He had nestled into Mrs. Hudson's lap where she sat on her sofa, biscuit in one hand, and a stuffed creature in the other. His turtle-necked jumper was cut partway down the middle, allowing easy access to the boy's throat. His mother fluttered anxiously around, watching the technician fiddle with a wire attached to a thin black collar around the boy's neck.

And John couldn't bring himself to actually look at the boy's face. What if he looked like Sherlock? What if he didn't? John wasn't sure which could be worse. The tense silence stretched and stretched, broken only by Mycroft's minute shifting, evidence of how worried he actually was. Then, a soft intake of breath, and the technician pulled the collar off, dropped it gently into a metal container, then stood, smartly saluting Mycroft.

"The collar has been deactivated and removed, sir."

The room suddenly shattered inwards and John, ever the soldier, leapt heavily over Mrs. Hudson and the boy, because even if his fighting instinct was strong, his instinct for protection was stronger. The technician shouted something, and the glass stop shattering inwards and John glanced up for just a moment, saw the woman laying on the floor with her brains all sprayed against the wall-no time to be sick now, it's the war again, it's _could be dangerous, John_-and he hauled Mrs. Hudson and the boy up in one arm each and ran like a rugby player right back up into the stairwell, too high for a street level sniper, too low for a rooftop one. He set Mrs. Hudson down, the boy in her lap, and she was already cooing at him as John trundled back down to Mycroft's terse, "Anthea-" and her, "Sniper has been located and killed. Cleaners are en route."

And everything was fine down there, dead woman aside, so he went back up to the stairs, and not a twinge in his knee, even from the grave, Sherlock his cure. He stopped short at a glance at the boy's neck, pressed red shapes against his throat.

"Mycroft!" The barked name summoned him better than even one of Sherlock's black moods had done. John pointed at the boy and began to read.

"Guess I lost." His voice was surprisingly strong as he echoed back Moriarty's words. "Oh well. Too bad daddy's left his little, lost lamb all alone in the world. Do give my regards to Mycroft, Johnny." John thumped his fisted hand against his thigh. "There was a signal, then? For Moriarty's men. In the collar."

"Obviously." But there was something of Sherlock in the word, some sort of subtle signal that perked John's attention, though he couldn't quite name it. Then Mycroft had moved to the boy, announced, "I am Mycroft Holmes. Your uncle. You will be staying with John Watson, here. I will visit again, soon. Duty calls."

"Hey, wait-" John wasn't protesting, not really-of course he would take care of Sherlock's son-but he did want to at least have a say in the matter.

"I have no room for a child at my side." Mycroft's voice was low enough for only them to hear. "I have many more enemies than Moriarty's web contains. Sherlock still had the majority of his trust fund intact. That will become his son's, and I will name you his guardian. You may use it as needs be for the boy's expenses."

"Isn't this all a bit fast?"

"John, do try not to be typical. There is no one else in this world I would rather trust my nephew to." And wasn't that a compliment and an insult all in one. "Cleaners will be finished in no more than an hour. Anthea will be in touch."

He was gone out the door, Anthea and the bomb technician trotting behind him obediently. John tried to think like a Holmes for a moment, apply his military knowledge to the situation, and realized that if a sniper were there to shoot someone, they would have had two snipers if two people needed to be shot, and still there was only one bullet. They were safe as they could be.

And so, slowly, so, so, slowly, he turned to face the boy in Mrs. Hudson's lap.

He wasn't exactly like Sherlock, of course not. His hair was all curls, though not as dark as Sherlock's, sandier like his mum's had been, instead. He had the boniest wee cheeks John had ever seen in a child, and Sherlock's eyes peered up at him, red rimmed and unhappy. It was all John could do not to weep.

Instead he carefully levered himself down to the boy's level.

"Well, like your uncle said. I'm John Watson. This is the landlady, Mrs. Hudson. We're going to take good care of you."

"Mummy is dead, isn't she?" The boy's lower lips trembled, and god, had young Sherlock looked as frail and huggable and painfully lost as a child? No wonder he had become what he was, if his son was anything to go by. It would have been the only way to survive childhood.

John nodded in answer to his question, ignored Mrs. Hudson's scandalized gasp, because this was Sherlock's son, and he deserved the truth and love and tenderness that Sherlock never had. "Yes. I'm afraid she is. I know I can't be her for you, and god knows I could never fit the space your father could have filled, but what say we try? You can… well, just call me John, alright?"

And he held his arms out in a sort of peace offering to the boy, waiting, hoping, and knowing that the only way for this to work was if the boy decided to go to John, rather than John try to take him in. Their eyes met for a long moment, his child's gaze every bit as calculating as Sherlock's. Then the little warm body was squirming into his arms and hot tears were pooling at John's collarbone and the boy settled close as he physically could.

Mrs. Hudson nodded to him and said in a hushed voice, "I'll just go get some biscuits and put the kettle on, dear. You just go get him all tucked in upstairs."

"Mrs. Hudson, the body-"

But the woman shook her head. "I've seen worse, love. It's all fine. You just make sure Mycroft pays for the broken window, hear?"

John ended up on the couch with the boy twined around his middle, bony knees jabbing here and there, and felt no need to move further. Sometimes human touch, just plain old skin on skin contact was the best medicine. Mrs. Hudson came in and set the tea on the side table quietly, then her footsteps slipped back downstairs. John let the boy cry himself silly for a bit, then murmured gently into his curls, "Now, what's your name, then? Shhhh, there's a good lad."

He hiccuped a bit, took a deep breath, and managed to squeak out around the tears, "I'm Hamish."

"Ah." John said eloquently. "Hamish."

Neither said anything till the next morning, when, after a fitful, tangled sleep on the sofa, John woke to Hamish's stare, then his quiet question,

"Hamish Holmes is a good name, isn't it?'

John felt a knot in his throat. It'd been there so long, but it felt different. Smaller, somehow. He brushed Hamish's messy hair away from the boy's sharp little cheeks and out of his grey-green eyes so he could cradle that teeny little face in his hands.

"It's a very good name."

* * *

I quit my fanfiction-writing addiction years ago, but suddenly this, so I wrote it, and thought, what the heck. People should read it. It'll probably be around 3-5 parts, updated as written (read: sporadically and disorderly). Let me know what you think! :)


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